[Video] Recalling the Hiring of Super Smith

Superintendent Dr. Howard Smith recalled that site visit our district officials made over a dozen years ago when they ventured up north, nearly to Canada, to visit him in his "natural habitat."

He brought back with him a "healthy disdain" for snow days, he joked at the recent gala fundraiser for the Foundation of the Public Schools where he was honored. All jokes aside, he said he knew right away he would make his new home here.

Sleepy Hollow Village Justice Andres Valdespino, then a Board of Education member, said Smith's memory of their trek was spot-on. "I was one of the ones that made that drive, and I didn't want to take my own car," he said. "We went in rentals."

Valdespino said he's proud of the choice his board made in Smith and all those years of achievement we've enjoyed since. 

Meanwhile, the Board's been busy with their own new hires: a new superintendent to replace Smith, Dr. Christopher Clouet, starts this summer; Rockland's Maureen Barnett will serve as principal for our district's youngest at John Paulding; and finally, as of last night, a new assistant superintendent has been named to replace retiring Dr. Barbarann Tantillo.

Dr. Colleen Carroll is a three-year probationary hire, effective as of July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2016. She too hails from upstate. Carroll holds a doctorate in Education from Sage Graduate School in Albany and a Masters from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in Troy. She has served in various New York districts: Saranac Lake, Saratoga Springs, and Cambridge, where she was an elementary principal for several years and the director of K-12 Literacy program for four. Her starting salary is $190,000.

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